^^=^- 




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THE PRRSIDKNT AND CONGRESS. 



A HI^^T TO THE SOUTH 



A WARNnTG TO THE NORTH. 



SAMUEL B. SCHIEFFELIN. 




JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN, PiUXTEKS, 10 & 18 JACOB STREET. 

1 8 (i T . 



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X Adoo 

ees' 

999 3 



THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS. 



A HIJSTT TO THE SOUTH. 



A WARNING TO THE NOETH. 



SAMUEL B. SOHIEFFELIJN". 



/ 



JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN, PRINTERS, 16 <& 18 JACOB STREET. 

1807. 



.S33 



[Reprinted from the New-YorU Times, Nov. 14, 18<56.] 

THE PEESIDEI^T A:NT> OOI^GKESS. 

To THE Editor of the New-Yokk Times: 

In the election wliicli lias just been held for members of 
Congress, many persons were deprived of an opportunity of 
fairly and fully expressing through the ballot-box their views 
of the questions at issue between the President and Congress. 
The only choice left them was to decide between a radical 
Kepublican, who had supported the Government in putting 
down the rebellion, and a Democrat, who was considered as 
having done all in his power to prevent the Government from 
doing so. There was no alternative but to vote for the Radi- 
cal, although opposed to his extreme radical views. Tlie 
persons referred to are not in accord with either of the two 
great political parties in the land ; and are ready to cast their 
votes with any party that will hold up right principles and 
offer as candidates men of principle. The time may come 
when their votes will be desirable and their power felt. 

The Democratic party, although again and again defeated, 
is still a great party. It has had to contend with the odium 
caused by the knavery, disloyalty, and repeated folly of many 
of its leaders. Prior to the rebellion they sacrificed every thing 
honorable to retain power and gather what they call spoils ; 
during the rebellion they were disloyal, giving every encour- 
agement to the rebellion, and throwing every obstacle they 
could in the way of the Government while it was endeavoring 
to suppress it. They showed both disloyalt}'- and folly in their 
Chicago Platform, and they are now foolish enough to propose 
from time to time as candidates for office many persons whose 
antecedents are such that no honest patriot can conscientiously 
vote for them. Had they associated a War Democrat with 
McClellan, and not been guilty of the wickedness and folly of 
the Chicago Platform, they would have been now, probably, 



the rulers of the country. They came very near succeeding 
as it was. While the Democratic party show the same spirit, 
it is to be hoped that it will be continually defeated, until its 
old leaders disappear, with the leaders of the rebellion, entirely 
from public view, or the party be entirely broken up. It is, 
however, yet a great party, controlling so great a number of 
votes that a change of a very small portion of the whole num- 
ber of voters will bring it again into power. Judging from 
the past, there is every probability that this will sooner or later 
happen. There is not only, tlierefore, danger that the Union 
party will lose its power, but, what is more to be feared, many 
of its most important acts will probably be repealed, and even 
the Amendments to the Constitution, though apparently adopt- 
ed by a sufficient number of States, will be annulled as having 
been unconstitutionally passed. 

The Republican party is also guilty of a series of blunders. 
It first obtained power through the divisions in the Democratic 
party, which united would have retained its supremacy. The 
Republican party was enabled to retain power by its loyalty 
and by adopting the name of the Union Party — a name which 
it fairly earned, and which it now appears to be casting aside, 
and to which, if they do not retrace their steps, they are no 
longer entitled. They show folly in allowing many men to 
be prominent among them who were well known as being 
ready to break up the Union before the rebellion commenced, 
and who assisted in planting the seeds of it. They made a 
mistake, relying upon their present possession of power, in act- 
ing in such a way as to drive the conservative men among 
them to join any other party which may hold up right princi- 
ples and nominate proper men for office. They are making a 
great blunder in abusing the Southern j)eople and treating 
them as conquered enemies, instead of welcoming them back 
as brethren, thus provoking their ill-will instead of winning 
their confidence and their future support for the Republican 
party. The Southern people should be treated not as hard- 
ened criminals, but as having been wrongly educated, misin- 
formed, and misled. They fought with a desperation which 
proved their sincerity, and with an energy which none but 
Americans could have shown, and which, in a better cause, 



would have been worthy of all commendation. Their loss of 
property, of their cherished institution, and of many of their 
choicest men — their failure, defeat, and submission, should be 
"considered enough. That many of them should feel disap- 
pointed, and even have some worse feeling, is not strange. 
They would not be men if they had them not, neither would 
we respect them if they showed themselves to be without feel- 
ing, and should act as whipped dogs. We want them restored 
as men and as brethren, not as slaves. 

The Republican members of Congress have made a great 
mistake in quarreling with the President, and in allowing their 
leaders publicly to abuse him ; in treating him as an enemy, 
instead of by due courtesy and by some concessions securing his 
cooperation in carrying into effect some of those great meas- 
ures for the public good which they both have at heart. The 
President is as anxious as the Congress is to secure the pay- 
ment of the national debt, and to prevent the assumption of 
the rebel debt ; to prevent the leading rebels from getting again 
into power ; to promote the welfare and the elevation of the 
freedmen ; and to secure an equal and impartial suffrage 
throughout the Union. The difference between the President 
and Congress is not so much in the object each has in view ; 
in fact, it may be said that they both have the same ends in 
view, hut they differ in the steps to he taken to secure those ends. 
There is no reason that, because the President desires to ac- 
complish these results in a different way from Congress, and 
in a way which he thinks is according to the Constitution, and 
therefore more likely to remain in force, he should be called a 
" traitor, peijured," etc. They who call him so lay themselves 
open to the charge of being thoughtless, or something worse. 
There are few men who have proved their love for the Union 
as he has done, and none who have risked more in showing it. 
He is entitled by the Constitution to have, to express, and to 
continue to hold his own views, although they may differ from 
those of the Congress. According to the Constitution : 

" Every bill, every order, resolution, or vote to which the 
concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may 
be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be 
presented to the President of the United States, and before it 



6 

becomes a law, or shall take effect, shall be approved by him. 
If he approve, he shall sign it ; but if not, he shall return it, with 
his objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, 
which shall ent^r the objections at large on their journal and 
proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two 
thirds of tliat House shall agree to pass the bill or resolution, 
it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, 
b}^ which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by 
two thirds of that House, it shall become a law." 

The Congress, therefore, not only is not the Government, 
but a mere majority of Congress is not even the law-making 
power. The President has a voice in the making of the laws 
and in proposed changes of the Constitution more than equal 
to a majority of the Congress. His veto can only be overbal- 
anced by the combination of the votes of two thirds of each 
House. The provision of the Constitution giving this inde- 
pendent power to the Executive, like that giving a lengthened 
term of ofHce to the members of the Senate, is a wise one. To 
talk of impeaching the President for using that power is revo- 
lutionary. 

When Mr. Johnson entered upon his duties as President, his 
wise and conciliatory course with the South, and his endeavors 
to restore and preserve the Union, won the admiration of all 
parties. He has not deviated from the course in which he 
started, nor from the platform upon which he was elected, nor 
from the expressed views of Mr. Lincoln, nor from the declar- 
ative resolutions of Congress during the war. He made a mis- 
take in the manner and matter of some of his speeches dur- 
ing his western tour, but some allowance may be made for 
them; considering the habits of a western stump speaker and 
the provocations he had received. He has also made a mistake 
in appointing some, who were considered sympathizers with 
the rebellion, to oflEice, displacing Union men. This may have 
occurred through ignorance, or for the purpose of more speed- 
ily having the Southern States acknowledged as being in the 
Union, as States, with their constitutional rights, which ap- 
pears to be the object he has in view as foremost in importance. 
To accomplish this — the great end of the war — he has acted 
not for a party, for he has ignored all parties, but as the Presi- 



dent of the United States, using the power committed to liiin 
by the Constitution. 

The greatest bhmder committed by the Eepublican party is 
the matter about -which the President and Congress are at 
issue; that is, the admission of tlie Eepresentatives of the 
Southern Sl-ates into Congress — a bhmder whicli, if persisted 
in, will endanger all their acts. The Constitution says, " The 
House of Eepresentatives shall be composed of members chosen 
every second year by the people of the several States." " Eep- 
resentatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the 
several States which may be included within thfs Union." The 
folly is in denying the Southern States the right of representa- 
tion as States, while Congress has the power of rejecting the 
individuals sent. "Each House shall be the judge of the elec- 
tions, retm-ns, and qualifications of its own members." They 
certainly are not compelled to admit any person known to be 
guilty of infamous crime, or perjury, or of treason against the 
Government. The Eepublican party has so large a majority 
in Congress that, for some time to come, they need not fear 
any oj^position that can be gathered against them. There is, 
however, much reason to fear that, through their own impru- 
dence and blunders, much of the good that they have done, 
and much that they hope to do, will be lost to \he country. 
Even their amendments to the Constitution will, with all pro- 
bability, be annulled by some future Congress, or some fu- 
ture Supreme Court, as having been adopted in a fraudulent 
or unconstitutional manner. The following action of the State 
of Oregon may serve as a warning : * 

" Sax Frajsx'isco, Oct. 7. 
" A dispatch from Salem, Oregon, states that in the House 
of Assembly yesterday, Mr. Humason ofiered a series of reso- 
lutions declaring that the action of the House in ratifying the 
Constitutional Amendment before the admission of the mem- 
bers of Grant County to their seats, w^as fraudulent ; and by 
the aid of one Union member the resolutions were adopted by 
the following vote : Yeas, 24 ; nays, 23. The Secretary of 
State was then requested to transmit a copy of the resolutions 
to Secretary Seward." 



What has thus been done by one State may be done, for the 
same or for other reasons, by others ; and will almost certainly 
be done by some future Congress, if they think any thing can 
be gained by it. Why should the Republican party run this 
risk ? There is no reason for their building such import ant struc- 
tures as they are doing on a foundation of sand. -They should 
see that the foundations are such, that no opposing tide can 
ever shake them. The party were enabled to suppress the re- 
bellion with the battle-cry, " The Union must be preserved. 
No State has a right to go out of it." They have abeady, in 
various ways, acknowledged the right of the Southern States 
to act as States. They are now inviting them to act as States 
on the proposed Constitutional Amendments. Let them at 
once have their rights, as States, to be represented in Congress, 
while using due caution in the admission of those who may be 
sent, as individuals. The party has so large a majority in the 
Congress and controls so many State Legislatures that they 
can act generously without danger, and they will gain much 
if they can secure the confidence and good will of the South- 
ern people. These can only be gained by showing confidence 
and good will toward them. The rights of the Southern 
States to representation being duly acknowledged, constitu- 
tional questions in regard to the Acts of Congress would be 
avoided, the misunderstanding between the President and 
Congress could be easily removed, and the good will of the 
Executive would again be found serviceable. 

S. B. S. 

New- York, November 14, 186 G. 



[Reprinted from the New-Tork Times, January 25, 1867.] 

A HIE"T TO THE SOUTH. 

The Southern States liave now an opportunity which they 
should take advantage of without dela3\ They have the power 
to save themselves from a future danger and evil, and to 
put themselves in a position which the Northern States have 
lost and can never regain. By amending their own State Con- 
stitutions they may escape having universal suffrage forced 
upon them through an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. The comfort of their homes, by keeping the 
control of the local offices, so as to insure their being filled by 
honest men, is of far more importance than the having a few 
more representatives in Congress, or even being represented 
there at all. The dangers and evils connected with universal 
suffrage in communities not fitted for it are being developed 
as our population increases, and are growing with its growth. 
Our cities show this very plainly. What else can be expected 
from universal suffrage in places where more than half the 
people herd in tenement-houses, where a great portion of the 
inhabitants are the dregs of society, and where this class con- 
trols the election of office-holders, school superintendents, 
and even of the judiciary ? 'No wonder that an organized 
ring has ruled and plundered the City of New-York until it 
has become necessary for the State to take it under its protec- 
tion. As the population of the country increases, this evil will 
be extending ; large cities will be springing up, gathering into 
them the depraved and the vile, who will obtain the rule and 
will plunder the inhabitants. There is danger that in time 
the masses of that class in the cities, led by designing men, 
will not only govern the cities, but will outvote and govern 
the State. This will probably soon be the case in the State of 
New- York. 

The Southern States should, therefore, while they have the 
opportunity, secure for themselves a limiUd and impartial suf- 
frage without regard to color. They may thus avoid having 
forced upon them universal suffrage, which is a curse to any 
community, whether white or black, until fitted for it. No 
community is fit for universal suffrage until both the head and 
the heart of the masses have received a Christian education 
and are controlled and guided by it. Until thus fitted the 
privilege of suffrage should be connected with some other 
qualification, S. B. S. 



[Reprinted from the New-York Times, January 29, 1867.] 

A WARI^CsTG TO THE IsTOETH. 

To THE Editor of the New-York Times: 

The House of Representatives lias taken one step in the 
programme whicli its leaders have for some time been threat- 
ening. Those threats hitherto were, by many, considered the 
mere bluster of a few noisy demagogues. The large vote given 
for the reference of the impeachment resolution may mean 
no more than to give those who have been so loudly calling 
for the impeachment of the President an opportunity of find- 
ing out whether there are any grounds for such action ; or it 
may be a token of the disposition of those who voted for it, 
that, like sheep, they intend to follow their leaders, and carry 
it into effect, if possible, whether right or wrong. . 

Thus far capital has not shown that it has much faith in the 
utterances of those most prominent in Congress ; otherwise 
gold would be rising very fast, and people would be preparing 
for a tornado. 

The programme of those who are attempting to overthrow 
the Government and usurp all power, appears to be to keep 
out the representatives of the Southern States or to dissolve 
those States, to depose the President, to change the Supreme 
Court, and to control the next Presidential election. This, in 
fact, is a covert rebellion, and an attempt at a revolution. 
They have already assumed that a majority in Congress is the 
Government. The following article from the London Time.s 
on the subject is suggestive : 

" It would, perhaps, be premature to say that the Gov- 
ernment of the United States is about to undergo a comj)lete 
change ; but the more we hear of the proceedings of the cur- 
rent session of Congress, the more apparent is it that elements 
are at work whicli must speedily transform the Constitution, 
unless their action is checked by the national opinion. Tlie 
Republican party, flushed with victory and overwhelming in 
strength, hurries on to its ends without listening to a word" of 
remonstrance. It is for a time the uncontrolled and uncon- 
trollable master of the situation. The minority, which passes 



11 

for an opposition in the Senate and House of Representatives, 
is literally silenced. The power of the President is gone. 

" The present Congress may not have time to complete its 
plans, but enough has been done to show the essential charac- 
ter of the changes the majority desire. The Legislative has 
conquered the Executive Department of the Government, and 
would now proceed to absorb all other power throughout the 
country. It is not difficult to see that a collision between 
Congress and some of the Middle States is the thing to be 
next apprehended. The policy of the Eepublican party in 
dealing with the conquered South must be supplemented by 
constitutional changes in the States still in the Union, and it 
is certain that these changes will not be accepted without an 
opposition which must first be crushed by enlarging the sphere 
of Congress. One of the great — perhaps we should say the 
great — questions in relation to the South is that of the suf- 
frage. 

" Congress has shown its temper by a suffrage bill for the 
District of Columbia. In this peculiar District — specially 
subject to the ^National Legislature — negroes will, after the 
present session, be admitted to vote like the other inhabitants. 
The next step will be the application of the same law to the 
Northern States. 

" The threatened interference of Congress with the qualifica- 
tion of voters in every State, will, if effected, be an essential 
alteration of the character of the Federation and the first in- 
stance of the aggrandizement of the central authority by the 
removal of the checks which were designed to limit its power. 

" The tendency of Congress to encroach on the functions of 
the separate States is a sequel to its absorption of the Presi- 
dential power, and is in complete agreement with the conduct 
of the majority toward the minority within itself The caucus 
has always been a great institution at Washington, but never 
hitherto has its power been any thing like what it is this ses- 
sion. The ' Caucus ' is King. It supersedes discusfeion in 
House and Senate. In this conclave of the dominant party 
the measures are hatched which are then brou2;ht to light in 
the Legislature, and hurried through without debate. 

" In observing the change which American institutions are 



12 

suffering, it must be observed that we pass no opinion on tlie 
immediate objects of the dominant party in Congress. The 
views of the Eepnblicans may be absohitely unexceptionable, 
but the means by which they endeavor to attain them appear 
to be destructive of the schemes of government designed by 
the authors of the Federation. The Government of the 
United States at this hour is not a representative government ; 
Congress is not a deliberative body. These are facts of obser- 
vation, and to insist upon them no more implies a criticism ot 
the Republican policy than to say that the Government of 
Russia is autocratic involves a condemnation of the Imperial 
regime. But the failure of Congress as a deliberative body, 
and of the representative institutions of the States, is a fact of 
the highest importance, and it may be questioned whether 
any ends can be worth such a cost. 

" We have been accustomed to believe free government to 
be of more value than any perfection of administration, and 
to think it the peculiar glory of Parliament or Congress that 
every opinion could find an utterance in it, every class could se- 
cure a representative and a hearing. America is in danger of 
losing, if it has not lost, this inheritance. Its Congress is en- 
grossing power to itself on all sides, and yet it is not Congress 
that is supreme, but a power behind Congress — secret, irre- 
sponsible, almost unknown. The decrees of this self-elected 
Council, matured in private, are launched upon the Legisla- 
ture, which accepts them without discussion, and the destinies 
of the nation are committed to the keeping of a few unseen 
men, who direct the machine of legislation. To what lengths 
the transformation of the American Government thus begun 
may be carried we know not ; individual members of Con- 
gress are powerless to resist it, and the only hope of arresting 
its progress lies in a recoil of national opinion such as has 
landed the Republican party in its present triumphant posi- 
tion." 

It is time for thoughtful men to consider what all this 
is leading to. The war, which was avowedly not against 
States, but to put down a rebellion in those States, has 
come to an end. The various proclamations withdrawing 
martial law, and announcing the reestablishraent of peace and 



13 

of the power of the civil laws, have restored the Southern 
States to all the rights which any of the States enjoy under 
the Constitution. Congress has already, in various ways, ac- 
knowledged some of those rights. The amnesty proclamations 
have restored almost the entire mass of the Southern people to 
all their rights as citizens with exemption from any pains or 
penalties on account of the rebellion. The Supreme Court 
has already confirmed some of these rights which Congress had 
attempted to interfere with. Instead of inducing the South, 
by wise and conciliatory action, to unite with the Repubhcan 
party, the offensive course of that party has driven nearly the 
whole Southern vote again to join those opposed to it. To- 
gether they now form a large majority of the legal voters in 
the United States. The majority in the present Congress, 
therefore, is not only acting in defiance of the Constitution in 
refusing the Southern States the right of representation, and in 
attempting to assume all the powers of the Government, but 
it is in reality, while so doing, only a faction representing a 
minority of the legal voters. The party they represent is not 
powerful enough to enable them to carry out their measures', 
by force of arms, as has been boasted. Of this their oppon- 
ents are aware, and they are beginning to threaten in their 
turn. A leading Democratic paper, counting the Southern 
votes with its own, says : " Thus it appears that the opposition 
to the Republican party could spare voters enough to make an 
army of nearly half a million of men, and still be equal to their 
opponents in numbers." " "\Ve have not only the President 
and the Supreme Court on our side, but a large majority of the 
whole people. If our institutions are to be shaken into chaos 
and remoulded, tlie majority possess the right, the power, and, 
what is more, the loill to have a hand in the operation. If the 
Constitution is to be broken down, to make way for the rule 
of the unrestrained majority, we shall take care that it is the 
real majority, not a sham one, that controls the destiny of the 
country." 

The unthinking may scoff at such threats, but it would be 
wiser to avoid giving occasion for them ; and also, to consider 
that the party making them numbers 1,T00,000 voters at the 
North, and counts upon nearly a million more at the South ; 



u 

tliat there are .^reat prizes before tliem, power and plunder ; 
the dispensing of office and the handling of five hundred mil- 
lions of yearly revenue ; and also, that they have heretofore 
shown themselves unscrupulous in the use of means to gain 
their ends. The Republican party, with the majorities it has 
in Congress and in the State Legislatures, has the opportunity 
and the power to adopt all needed measures for the future 
welfare of our whole people, and of keeping within constitu- 
tional limits while doing so. Why should they risk the car- 
rying of those measures into effect, and all that has been 
accomplished by the Union Party ; and also, the peace of the 
country, by allowing fanatics and demagogues to lead them 
beyond the shield of the Constitution ? The party having the 
law on its side, should a struggle come, must conquer. It was 
that, not mere numbers, which enabled the Korth to put down 
the late rebellion. 

Should the leaders in Congress carr}^ out the programme 
they have proposed, there is great danger of another civil 
war, and one in comparison with which the late war, w^itli all 
its horrors, will be lost sight of. It will not be a war carried 
on by one section of the country against another, but it wall 
be a strug-ffle between the members of the same communitv, 
and of the same household, divided one against another. 

Few consider the danger of trifling with the Constitution, 
and much more of having it rudely set aside. Kone can real- 
ize the horrors of a state of anarchy without having experi- 
enced it. Those living in some of the South- American Re- 
publics, so called, with their almost yearly revolutions, know 
something of it. Some, who were" in the City of New- York 
during the late riot, on the night when the city was in dark- 
ness, when the mobs were murdering people in the streets, and 
were sacking and burning houses without control, had a short 
taste of it. 

The Union party, wdiich put down the rebellion, has disap- 
peared. The echoes of its patriotic appeals, proclamations, 
and resolutions in Congress are growing fainter and fainter. 
A new rebellion has been inaugurated, and it should at once 
be crushed. The Republican leaders had better pause before 
it be too late. They would have show^i far more wisdom 



15 

if they had adopted God's plan of reconciling a rebellious 
world to himself by proclaiming "peace, good will toward 
men." Love conquers and unites. Their hatred of President 
Johnson will probably be the means, in connection with his 
endeavors to guard the Constitution, of making him President 
again for a second term. The hatred of the Southern people, 
shown in their speeches and in the most of their attempted 
acts in Congress, has not only alienated them yet more fi*om 
the Kepub^ican party, but it is tending to destroy the little re- 
maining love they had for the Union, and will make them 
ready to take advantage of any opportunity that may hereafter 
offer to break away from it. Sowing discord instead of peace, 
they have paralyzed the development of the best interests of 
the country, both JSTorth and South. In their attempts to 
put aside the Constitution or to override it, they are allowing 
the Democratic party, which came so nigh enabling the South 
to break up the Union, to reap all the honors of the late Union 
party for preserving it, by giviog that party the opportunity 
of being now the defenders of the Union and of the Constitu- 
tion. Every step taken by the Pepublicans thus far while 
tolling the death-knell of their I3arty has been hailed with de- 
light by the Democrats as the harbinger of their coming again 
into power, which, judging from the history of that party for 
years past, is greatly to be deprecated. 

Let the faction in Congress take a few more steps in the 
road they have been pursuing, and it will be the duty of all 
good citizens, irrespective of party, to form Constitution 
Leagues to save, if possible, the country from that anarchy 
which must follow the setting aside of the Constitution. It 
must be preserved. The peace of the country requires it. 
The Republican party themselves will probably soon be crying 
out for its help against the acts of those who will succeed 
them in power ; and what is more, it is the only earthly pro- 
tection upon which the freedmen can rely for the future secu- 
rity of their newly acquired liberty and rights, which may 
again be taken from them, should the Pepublican party give 
cause for some future Congress to declare all their acts uncon- 
stitutional. 

The South has already been chastised for tightening the 






\ 



16 

chains, and endeavoring to keep as brutes those who were un- 
der its care and control. It may be that the Lord is allowing 
Congress to go on in its course of folly and madness to bring 
about another civil war, for the purpose of chastising the 
North for its sins, and for the hand it had in causing the 
tightening of the chains of the slave, and in planting some of 
the seeds of the first rebellion. May his people look to him 
to save us from another civil war. 

S. B. S. 
New-York, Jan. 29, 18G7. 



jm 



A ^m >'^f^ARY OF CONGRESS 



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013 785 675 A 



